Khalym Burke-Thomas

Cultural Affairs Production Intern

Wyoming Public Media

Khalym Burke-Thomas is a second-year MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Wyoming. He is originally from South Orange, New Jersey, but prior to moving to Wyoming lived in Brooklyn, where he dedicated a year of service to City Year New York, an education non-profit. Khalym received a BA in Asian Studies with a focus in Japanese from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and has been to Japan on three separate occasions. His academic and artistic interests include (but are not limited to) pro-black activism, womanism, and the intersection of queerness and blackness.

On Saturday, January 30, athletes throughout the mountain states will come to Wyoming to compete in the sport of yoga. For the second year in a row Wyoming will be the site of the USA Yoga Mountain States Regional Championship. While last year’s event took place in Pinedale, this year the competition has moved to Jackson.

University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra conductor Michael Griffith has been awarded third place in a nationwide competition for his excellence in orchestral programming. The American Prize, which is awarded annually in multiple categories, was founded in 2009 and seeks to “recognize and reward the very best in the performing arts in the United States.”

Next fall, Sheridan will be one of eight cities to host the first-ever Elite Rodeo Athletes nationwide tour, which will televised as part of a multi-million dollar deal with Fox Sports. Sheridan is the only Wyoming city on the schedule.

“This event, especially once it develops a following on television, will draw in an audience way larger than just the Sheridan community,” says Sheridan WYO Rodeo board president Nick Siddle.

He says this kind of exposure not only means a wider audience for rodeo, but a boost to the Sheridan economy as well.

When the chair of University of Wyoming’s music department, Theresa Bogard, interviewed for a position at the university 24 years ago, she was told the department would be getting a new building “soon”. Now, nearly a quarter of a century later, the newly renovated performing arts center is finally here. But before the renovations, conditions were bleak.

On Thursday, an award-winning film based on a classic James Welch novel makes its Wyoming debut. Winter in the Blood follows the story of a Blackfoot man, Virgil First Raise, through his journey of self-discovery. The movie is directed by brothers Alex and Andrew Smith.

This Saturday, September 19, the Jackson-based theatre company Riot Act, Inc. will hold a sketch comedy workshop with hopes that participants will go on to form a comedy troupe of their own. The workshop is open to all levels of writers and actors.